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“She can’t give you what you want. I can. And you know that,” Lydia insisted.
I heard something shuffle behind me, and I turned just as Weston rounded the corner of the garage, his eyes on me.
I met him halfway, eyes full of hatred.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
He grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me until we were back where he’d been standing earlier. There was a window there, and you could see Luke and Lydia speaking, as well as where I’d been standing prior.
“I said,” yanking my arm away. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass, if you’d shut the hell up,” Weston snapped, raising his finger to his lips.
I snapped my mouth shut and glared at him, raising my eyes for him to get on with it.
“My wife’s a fuckin’ psycho,” he said without preamble.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean really; she’s fuckin’ psycho.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, and started tapping my foot.
He sighed. “She found out I’d been seeing someone, but she thinks it’s you; not Lydia. She’s the one who shot at Luke the other day.”
My mouth dropped open, and I started to yell. Except I found my mouth covered my Weston’s hand.
“Shh,” he hissed.
I bit his hand, and he yanked it away with a growl. “Listen, you stupid little bitch, I’m trying to save your fuckin’ life!”
I snorted. “Then go to the authorities.”
His fists clenched. “I am the authorities.”
I scoffed. “You’re full of it.”
In answer, he pulled something flat out of his pocket. A wallet.
He flipped it open and showed me a badge that read ATF on it.
I couldn’t fucking believe it. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not.”
I stepped back until my back hit the brick wall. “I can’t believe this. How long have you been with ATF?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “Since before I met you.”
I smacked him. Hard.
His face turned with the blow, and he turned back to me slowly. “That’s all you get.”
I wanted to beat his face in.
All this time!
“I just can’t believe it. All this time I thought you were some deadbeat dad, and you’ve been lying to us both!” I said, my voice raising an octave.
He grimaced. “I didn’t have much choice. I’d been working undercover when I met you. Nothing was supposed to come of our relationship. I didn’t have any control of how everything went down.”
I let my head fall back against the brick. “You’re a douche. Why string us along at all? Why not leave and never come back?”
I opened my eyes to find him clenching and unclenching his jaw. “I didn’t have a choice.”
I sneered. “You always have a choice.”
“Not this time I didn’t. Not if I valued your’s or Rowen’s life at all,” he said cryptically.
“How about you both tell us what you’re talking about,” Luke’s dry voice said from behind us.
I looked over at him, feeling nothing. I was numb.
For Rowen’s whole life, the man in front of me had been lying about who he was.
All this time.
“Tell us what the fuck is going on, and let’s do it quick. I’m on a deadline,” Luke snapped when Weston continued his silence.
They both looked at each other, at a loss for words, apparently.
My eyes went down to the ground as I worked my teeth, clenching and unclenching them.
My eyes lit on the shovel that was leaned up against the wall of Luke’s garage, and I thought, I wonder if I smack them upside the head with that if they’d suddenly find their tongues.
“Anita’s gone a little cuckoo since she found out that Weston was seeing somebody around town,” Lydia blurted, her face going red in agitation.
“So what are you doing here?” Luke asked, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
When neither one of them spoke, Luke looked up and pinned his glare on Lydia.
“Anita thinks that Weston’s seeing Reese behind her back,” Lydia said when Weston continued keeping his mouth shut.
Lydia apparently couldn’t withstand the glare. I was proud to say that I could. Most of the time.
It was intimidating to have the full force of Luke’s anger directed at you. He wasn’t a small man, and he had a huge personality to fit his body. He had the power to pin anyone with his stare.
He’d be a good bouncer. Nobody would try to fuck around with him nearby.
“In the beginning? It was because my mom spoke of this ‘majestic,’ small, Texas town like it was the best place on earth. She spoke about how life was slower down here, more peaceful. And I needed to get out of there. My father was smothering me. So I moved here. It was never because of you. It was for me,” she said softly.
“And how did you two end up together?” Luke wondered.
“Rowen asked to go to her shop one day. She said they had really good cookies. That’s how we met.” He pointed at Lydia.
That would be my fault. I’d brought Rowen cookies from there on multiple occasions before I realized it was Luke’s ex’s place. That stopped, at least from my end.
“Why are we even in this at all?” Luke questioned.
I had that same exact question.
Why? What were we to all this?
Then a thought struck me, and I got a tad hysterical.
“So you took our child around a known criminal?” I clarified.
Weston’s head snapped around, looking at me warily. “She’s not dangerous. Fuck, I’m more responsible than that. She only had a suspected connection with the mafia.”
“The mafia?” I shrieked. “The motherfucking mafia?”
Weston winced, rethinking on what he’d said. “She was never proven to have a connection. In fact, we were only sitting on her because her father was arrested for money laundering. They could never prove that it was the mafia’s money they were laundering. I’ve been ‘married’ to her for a year now, and haven’t found a thing on her.”
I launched myself at him, my hands going forward to claw out his eyes.
